Love on the Air(45)

He raised his eyebrows at her. "Don't you have an air shift to do?"

Yvonne arched her eyebrows in return, then left without another word.

Rick sighed, pulled himself up and trudged to the coffee machine.

Christie plugged in her headphones with a heavy heart. These night shifts were getting longer and longer, and more and more sad ballads seemed to be cropping up on the play list. She knew it was her imagination, but it didn't help.

It was Thursday night-no, Friday morning, she corrected herself-and she had an interview in Tucson first thing Monday. Rick had asked very few questions when she'd asked to take the Monday shift off. Instead, he'd waved her away, saying she had that much comp time coming to her for all the extra work she put in. For a moment she'd stood there in front of his desk, tempted to say more, but he seemed more preoccupied than usual. Probably just as well.

She had an interview to work the midday shift in Tucson, for a lot more money, and she was miserable.

Christie started the next song. Paul McCartney's voice filled the studio, singing warmly and sweetly about no more lonely nights. It was one of her favorites, but it wasn't on the play list. She'd cued the wrong track on the CD player. And tonight, it was the last thing she needed to hear. A lot of the songs that were getting to her these days were pretty sappy. But this one, with its mixture of longing and hope, felt intimate and real. Christie reached for the knob to change to the right track, then stopped. Perversely, she bit her lip and let it play.

"No more lonely nights. . ." Paul sang.

It was too much. She dropped her forehead to her arms on the counter and waited for the phone to ring, for Rick to tell her the thing wasn't on the stupid play list. Half of her hoped he would.

But he didn't.

The first hour of the night dragged by. Then the song on CD-1 started to skip, and Christie reached for the butter knife before she realized this wasn't the problem CD player. The glass walls around her started to vibrate. Then, invisible hands seemed to be shaking the whole studio from the outside as the tremor grew.

An old hand at California earthquakes, Christie ducked underneath the counter. She knew a lot of people who didn't even bother to do that. There wasn't much room, but she managed to find some cover alongside the sound equipment and dusty wires. Around her, the room continued to rock, and she eyed the rattling windows with some apprehension. At least there were blinds in front of the glass.

Most earthquakes were over in a few seconds. This one was still picking up steam. Christie was willing to bet most people would be diving for cover by this time. CDs fell-no, flew-from the shelf above her, sailing by and clattering to the floor.

Finally, slowly, it subsided.

Christie straightened, not sure if what she felt was some remaining swaying or her own reaction to the movement. The quake must have gone on for the better part of a minute. Now, it was barely over, and already her phones were lighting up. It was a foreign sight this time of night.

Priorities, she reminded herself. Christie went on the air, confirmed that there had been an earthquake, and details would be available soon. She checked the Internet, found the initial assessment of the quake, and started answering phone calls. It had been a big one, originating about twenty miles away...

Then the EAS tone sounded, and all bets were off.

The Emergency Alert System was tested on a regular basis, but Christie had never heard of it being needed for an actual emergency. She scrambled for the station's EAS manual, which miraculously hadn't fallen off the shelf with the CDs. Following the instructions, she received a message from the emergency crew: a natural gas line had broken in a suburban neighborhood, and the surrounding blocks were being evacuated.

Christie aired the report. The phones were going insane. Answer the phones? Keep the music going? She wasn't sure. Wildly, she remembered what she'd once said to Rick: So I'm here in case of an emergency?

Rick. It was after one in the morning, but she had a feeling he'd better know about this. She was picking up the phone, trying to get a line clear to call him, when he hurried into the studio, pulling off his jacket and joining her behind the counter. Obviously the quake had gotten him out of bed; his hair was rumpled, and so was his shirt, as if he'd thrown it on in a hurry. He looked more unshaven than she'd ever seen him. And Christie had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

"I missed the last couple of minutes," he said. "What have we got?"

"EAS alert. I just aired a report from the emergency crew. There's a gas main..."

And suddenly the chaos was manageable. It was a frenzy, but with Rick's help, it was a controlled frenzy. He handled the phone calls and helped her run the control board; Christie took the updates from the emergency crew and aired the reports. Even at this hour, the evacuation had created a traffic backup in the mountain pass leading out of the neighborhood near the gas line. Most of the calls were superfluous, asking about the reason for the backup, or what the magnitude of the earthquake had been. All of which the callers would have known if they'd turned on their radios for five minutes. Rick waded through them and passed the few valid tidbits of information on to Christie.